BJ Shea

Come on in, gang! We're cooking up a new helping of Group Therapy! We do it just like your grandma does!

(Well, not like everyone's grandma does. You'll understand the need for clarification in just a moment...)

We're trying to help Greg, whose grandfather has been married to his wife (Greg's step-grandmother) for over 30 years. Isn't that adorable, when old folks have been in love for decades? Well, it usually is…but Greg's family recently learned that Granny's been having an affair!

If that wasn't bad enough, here's another problem: if Greg's family were to tell their patriarch about his wife's cheating ways, they would run the risk of ruining his life in many ways; as it happens, the old lady owns pretty much all of their assets. A divorce would leave him with next to nothing. Greg says his grandfather is too independent and stubborn to live with one of his loving family members, but they're willing to take him in.

This debate has been raging within the family for over a month now, and they could really use some help! What advice do you have for a Rock-A-Holic in need?

Up until a day ago, I had my mind set to write something totally fun and foolish, but some things really ticked me off, and the thing that ticks me off most is anyone doing or saying anything that could harm someone else. It's not enough to ignore it.

A few weeks ago, I thought Rand Paul and his statement that vaccines should be an individual's decision, as if he were an authority, was about as stupid as it gets. It reignited a controversy and re-cleared a path many parents followed as a result of a scare a few years ago that speculated there might be a relationship between vaccines and autism. Now everyone but Paul seems to know there is no connection—everyone, that is, except those who chose to follow a nutcase to the cracker farm.

Now a bigger idiot has joined the fool's parade. Nevada state assemblywoman Michele Fiore (R) plans to introduce a bill she said would provide more options for cancer patients, but it actually relies on what medical experts call a myth. As reported at ThinkProgress.org (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/02/24/3626567/nevada-assemblywoman-cancer-fungus/) Fiore said on her radio show: "If you have cancer, which I believe is a fungus, and we can put a pic line into your body and we're flushing, let's say, salt water, sodium cardonate [sic], through that line, and flushing out the fungus… These are some procedures that are not FDA-approved in America that are very inexpensive, cost-effective." She believes, and she's not a doctor!

I know a little to a lot about cancer treatment as my wife battled it for 14 years and during the last two was a part of Phase 1 trials at Dana Farber, one of the best cancer research hospitals in the world with some of the greatest doctors in the cancer research field, and I can tell you that Fiore's statement is BUNK! The argument that sodium bicarbonate can be used to flush cancer out of the body stems from unsubstantiated treatments by an Italian doctor, Tullio Simoncini. Simoncini's license to practice medicine was revoked in 2003, and three years later, he was convicted of wrongful death and swindling.

What scares me the most are people like Michele Fiore and Rand Paul who have a national stage and an audience, including vulnerable cancer patients, willing to believe almost anything. I have never been diagnosed with cancer, but I can't possibly imagine a more frightening medical diagnosis. I saw the fear my wife lived with day after day and was party to the various thoughts that entered her mind, particularly right after she was diagnosed. Almost ready to try anything, she'd say things like (and I made this up), "Gee, I heard someone say that sitting on a limb and hooting like an owl cures cancer. Well, I'll try that. It's better than dying," and then the limb breaks. Or take Farrah Fawcett, flying back and forth to Europe to get some types of treatment she couldn't get here. No one wants to die, and any imbecile who plays off that fear by endorsing quack cures should be locked away for the safety of us all.

I have a little more to say about this subject and also some fun stuff on the shores of Rambling Harbor. Join me there.

Happy Friday to you, loyal Rock-A-Holics! Let’s kick off the weekend with a little bit of Group Therapy, shall we?

Monica needs some advice about a woman in her group of friends. This particular lady is a real flirt…with Monica’s boyfriend!

Monica’s boyfriend isn’t a big fan of this woman, and he says he just ignores the flirting. Meanwhile, Monica CAN’T ignore it, and it makes her angrier every new time it happens. Her group of friends is the kind that spends a lot of time together, including special occasions; this includes events like Monica’s upcoming birthday party. Even though she knows that the other women in the group will question her decision, Monica is thinking about leaving Flirty off the invitation list.

Personally, I wonder if there’s a possible future in which Monica tells the woman how much she’s bothered by her behavior, the woman apologizes profusely, and the flirting stops immediately, never to return.

Welcome back to Group Therapy, gang! We like to think of you all as members of our big, weird family!

One Rock-A-Holic who likes to keep it in the family is Robert, who wrote us to say that he’s thinking about dumping his girlfriend…for her mother.

It’s okay, you can take a second. Go back and read it again. We’ll wait here.

A couple of years back, Robert had a one-nighter with a woman, and he was definitely interested in a return engagement. She was freshly divorced, and not looking for any kind of relationship. Jump ahead to a couple of weeks ago, when he met his current girlfriend’s mother. Do you see where this is going?

The mom sent Rob a friend request on Facebook, and messaged him to confirm that she would keep their mutual secret. As the conversation went further, she told Rob that she regretted not getting into a relationship with him after the one-night stand. Rob is 38, the girlfriend is 28, and Sexy Mom is 46. Guess which one of the two women he can’t stop thinking about?

I need some help here, folks. I’m shaking my head so hard at this one – especially in the mom’s direction – that I can’t even think straight. What should Rob do about this situation?

For today’s Group Therapy session, we’re going to keep it short on top. We may also take a little off the sides, and probably tease the back. Let’s get started, shall we? Chop-chop!

A Rock-A-Holic named Lindsay wrote to us, looking for some advice; let’s see if we can help her out. Lindsay is a hairdresser whose clientele happens to include a married couple, and she considers herself friends with the wife. The husband and his wife come in separately, and the conversation is usually pretty easygoing and friendly. During a recent appointment, however…the husband told Lindsay that he’s with another woman.

(Hang on for a second. I’m going to make an early prediction about this one: the husband is trying to get with Lindsay. Men don’t talk to women about this stuff unless they have an ulterior motive.)

When Lindsay reacted with shock, the man backpedaled quickly, and told her that his other woman was no problem, because he and his wife have an open relationship. Lindsay is almost completely certain that he was lying about that, because the wife has said multiple times that she would kill him if he ever cheated on her. Lindsay concedes the point that the wife may be keeping that aspect of her relationship a secret from her hairdresser, but she’s worried that the husband’s revelation has put her in a terribly awkward position.

We’re back on the job with some Group Therapy, but we definitely need some human resources…in the form of Rock-A-Holics helping their own kind!

Sheila has some inside information about a fellow employee who’s about to lose their job. Unfortunately, that employee is her boyfriend! The two of them work together, but not directly, and Sheila’s a little bit higher up on the food chain than her man. It was Sheila’s boss that spilled the beans, but he didn’t know about the relationship; he thought he was just sharing the facts about a soon-to-be-dismissed employee whose job performance apparently isn’t up to snuff. As you might expect, Sheila is feeling a bit conflicted, and she came to us for some help.

This is privileged information, and Sheila is really stuck in the middle of a bad situation. Should she tell her boyfriend that he’s losing his job in a couple of weeks? There are so many things that could go wrong if he finds out his termination is imminent. People don’t always take rejection and dismissal in the most mature fashion.

On the other hand, if she doesn’t give him a heads-up, it probably won’t take him long to figure out that his girlfriend knew about his firing in advance. The repercussions for that scenario are fairly obvious, I think.

This sounds like a job for the fine folks who read this blog! What advice do you have for Sheila?

I love sci-fi, every angle of it: music from David Bowie and his “Space Oddity” to R.E.M singing “Man on the Moon,” mostly about Andy Kaufman and hoaxing, you know, like putting a man on the moon; movies like Alien, where we got to watch Sigourney Weaver give birth to a monster (and to this day still causes me to fear the worst whenever I have stomach ache); and TV from My Favorite Martian to Alphas. We’ve been spacing out for generations, if not hundreds of years, fascinated with what’s over yonder or out there. Somehow the place we’ve been planted is not the place we want to grow. In fact, it seems we are hell bent on destroying what little earth we have been granted.

Now, if missing out on the winning Powerball wasn’t enough to make you cry, I’m sure this will do it. The process is over for picking the final 100 applicants out of 200,000 who had their hearts set on the Mars One program and so desperately wanted to be shot to Mars and die there, 33 of them Americans. This is a $6 billion trip financed through sponsorships, crowdfunding, intellectual property revenue, and the sale of broadcasting rights. Broadcasting rights, wow! Maybe Brian Williams would like to go; I understand he needs a new gig. Or imagine being the first spaced-out spaced-out DJ. All this makes me wonder, why they are trying so hard to get off the earth? What are they not telling us?

In 1903, the Wright brothers successfully flew a plane for a whopping 59 seconds, Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969, and just 55 years later, in 2024, we’re off to Mars. I heard one scientist say it would help us better understand the meaning and origin of creation, but sweet mother of the cosmos, we haven’t done anything but screw up Earth. If there is intelligent life out there, and I’m sure there is, at some point they are going to say, “Back away from our planet, Earthlings. This is a pollution-free galaxy. Just turn your little spaceship around before we have to show you what a real probe feels like.”
Oh! Guess what they are going to shoot into space next. Really!

There are more thoughts both orbiting and submerging on the shores of Rambling Harbor and one obvious blunder. In the podcast, I say that Lesley Gore died on Monday the 23rd instead of the 16th. Oops! Give a listen.

Hello again, good people! Let’s all be friends to a fellow Rock-A-Holic, and gather around for some Group Therapy!

Thomas just learned that his girlfriend has an arch-nemesis…and she happens to be someone that Thomas used to hook up with!

The whole thing started when the girlfriend started a new job a couple of months ago. As she settled in to her new gig, she started complaining to Thomas about a co-worker that gives her a real hassle on a regular basis. It didn’t take long for her to start absolutely hating this mysterious woman, and when she recently showed Thomas a picture of her work group, he realized that he recognized the enemy. This was a woman he hooked up with a few times, but it wasn’t serious.

Unfortunately, he’s going to be in the same room as both women very soon, as a work function will force him to confront the issue. Thomas is worried that the woman will recognize him, and their past will be revealed; whether the truth comes out by awkward accident, or as a malicious revelation from this woman who picks on his girlfriend, things aren’t looking very good.

Thomas, you are on the highway to the Danger Zone. You need to decide if you’re going to reveal the truth in advance, or let it come out awkwardly. I’m turning this one over to the Rock-A-Holics, because you need all the help you can get…

During a recent screening of “Fifty Shades of Grey” in Scotland, three women (aged 31, 38, and 58) attacked a man because he asked them to quiet down. Not surprisingly, this occurred in a theater that serves alcohol. In fact, the man was hit with a glass, so the entire assault turned bloody. The women were arrested outside the theater, and one eyewitness account to the newspaper TheTelegraph said the attackers “looked the worse for wear from drink”.

Oh, and did we mention that it happened on Valentine’s Day?

This is one of those times when I have to point out that men don’t act this way. When we go out for sex-related entertainment, we behave ourselves. I’m not going to overgeneralize and pretend that some guys don’t get out of hand, but I believe it’s largely true: we can handle ourselves in these situations more capably than women can. I’m not sure where the imbalance comes from, but there it is.

Meanwhile: Steve the Producer tells me that he saw a “Fifty Shades” section in Target recently. I’d check it out, but I’d be scared to find out what happens when you find yourself up against a crazed housewife, both of you reaching for the last blindfold…

Welcome back, Rock-A-Holics! We appreciate the fact that you’ve made a habit out of Group Therapy! Let’s fire up a new session, shall we?

Today’s friend-in-need is Mel, who is bothered by the fact that her boyfriend of two years has started smoking again (we assume that he quit before the relationship began). Mel is a vehement anti-smoker, and her boyfriend knows it, but he believes it’s fine as long as he doesn’t do it around her. She says the smell lingers too much on his clothes and body for her liking.

The boyfriend says that he’s only picked up the habit due to work stress, and he swears he’ll quit again eventually. Mel doesn’t have too much faith in this ambiguous plan, and she wonders how long it would be before he starts again…so she’s considering giving her man an ultimatum.

Habits – or addictions, I suppose – are a very difficult thing to wrangle for the people who are in the grip of them, and difficult to understand for the people around them. If I’m being honest, I’m addicted to sugar, and it’s a hard habit to break. A candy bar doesn’t get the same reaction from people as a cigarette, so I’m sure it seems like a fairly harmless addiction to the average observer; but rest assured, you don’t want to see me on a day when I’m fighting to avoid the temptation.

That being said…Mel, I’m not sure I believe in the effectiveness of ultimatums, so I’m going to turn this one over to the good people who read this blog. Let’s see some smoke signals from you, Rock-A-Holics: should Mel put her foot down, or wait for the problem to burn itself out?